I don't like to deal in probabilities, but I'd reckon a successful revival of a dolphin would count. Short of that? Probably nothing, if by 'considerable' you mean 'worth spending my money on'. Things other than evidence might convince me though - like my wife wanting to sign up for cryonics for whatever fool reason.

I'm sad that I can't downvote this article. It's ridiculously off-topic.

ETA: still, it's terrible. That's how Douglas Adams died!

I like that motto a lot. Another one that bears on this is Postel's Law: "Be conservative in what you do; be liberal in what you accept from others."

In the case of wanting to deemphasize politeness, this would suggest being more lenient in the amount of rudeness you allow from others, but not increasing it in your output. Sort of the principle behind Crocker's Rules.

There's sometimes a tendency in rationalists to observe (accurately) that our society overemphasizes politeness over frankness, and then to take it upon ourselves to correct this.

Great comment, agreed on all points. One of my mottos is "As polite as possible; as rude as necessary".

I can't see anything in Annoyance's writings that could not be conveyed with less rudeness except their urge to ensure we all understand the contempt they hold us all in.

I must disagree with your assessment of Hegel. Folks from the outside often see "philosophy" as something without internal divisions (like people from the outside of any culture). While it's true that 'very many' (for some values of 'very many') think Hegel is a fraud, he's still both popular and influential. I am amongst the ones who don't think very highly of 'continental philosophy' (of which Hegel is an example), but I nonetheless recommend him at times. Specifically, some folks think Marx had interesting things to say about alienation, and I have to point out that Marx pretty much just lifted those parts entirely from Hegel (though mostly reversing their spin). As continental philosophers go, I think Hegel is pretty solid (compare Heidegger).

But yes, folks that use terms that lump Isaac Newton and Dan Dennett together with Hegel and Marx are clearly doing something wrong.

This is strangely moving.

I almost feel like you're about to die, Eliezer.

Don't leave us hanging, what's going on? Are you cutting back on writing new pieces for LW? Does this mean work on the book(s)? Is that still happening? Are you cutting back to focus more on your, er, other project? Or am I misreading this post and nothing's changing?

I've verified the numbers, thomblake has posted 2538 down votes. 93t is 11801 in base 36. Adding 436 articles drop the percentage slightly to 20.7%.

Are upvotes also so restricted?

Nope. I'd suggested that originally for balance, but the concern here (I think) was that someone could wreak more damage with unrestricted downvotes. Someone could create a bunch of accounts and downvote a bunch of stuff to oblivion. To use the 'pruning the garden' metaphor, we don't want people to come off the street with machetes and chainsaws.

But yes, I find it very ironic that this feature was implemented at the same time as encouragement to downvote more. On the other hand, they do go together, as since I can't be the one doing most of the downvoting anymore (he said jokingly), other people need to step it up.

Those of you excited about this: aside from the presumed difficulty of implementing it, would it be even better if there were an option to actually vote -0.3 on a post, instead of voting -1 with 30% probability? And would it be even more of an improvement if you could choose to vote anywhere in the [-1, 1] range, so that you could mark something -0.7 or +0.25?

Those suggestions probably seem like an exaggeration, but I really do think we're all getting too worked up over the minutia of the karma system. This isn't a game. These numbers aren't our high scores. It feels like there's too much temptation to regard them that way, and further complexity to the system will only increase that.

Bruce-like behaviour is best understood as pursuit of suffering.

I do not associate losing with suffering. Losing is not-winning. I know a lot of people who win and do not enjoy it. I know people who do not mind losing. Bruce-like behavior is most evident in people who claim they want to win but get in the way. I think that there are Bruces who are fine not winning. The easiest example would be a teacher letting a student win. Some teachers bend over backwards to not win.

Also, to say that someone who unintentionally screws up their pursuit of winning is really pursuing suffering is a bit of jump. I can see the conclusion that they are unintentionally pursing losing. But to say that all Bruces suffer from losing and pursue losing and, therefore, are pursing suffering is a stretch. And then labeling them masochists? I see the point, and I think it is valid, but I think it may be making the water muddier than clearer.

Pursuit of suffering, quite simply, gets in the way of winning, and, much like akratic behaviour, it is something that we should try desperately to find and destroy, because we should be happier without it.

Pursuit of losing gets in the way of winning and pursuit of suffering gets in the way of not suffering. I guess this is a better way to describe the objection I voiced above: both events are valid, and Bruce seems most likely to be doing both, but even if they are connected I am not sure they can be addressed as only one problem. Rooting out one will not destroy the other. I can eliminate the drive to suffer and still have a drive to lose (that is probably a misguided drive to not suffer). I can also eliminate the drive to lose and still have a drive to suffer.

(Off-topic) Would this latter be a case of someone constantly apologizing for winning? Or complaining about winning? A whiny winner? Hmm...

(Also off-topic) How did marathons get included in a list of masochistic behaviors? I can understand the spicy foods bit, but I thought marathons were a contest of physical stature, not how much pain you can endure.